Yeh Shaam Mastani

At our office AOL Bangalore we celebrated our Annual day with a bash that we will remember for all days to come.

It was a awesome experience from the day we started our rehearsals to the day we where on the stage. Loads & Loads of fun. :)

Check me & my friends rock the show with our dance performances :)



!!! Bollywood Masti !!!

Getting rid of IF/SWITCH statement, and become a stylish coder!

Are you fed up of using IF/Switch statements? Is your code looks clumsy with multiple/nested IF statements...want to fine tune them? check out this video..it'll give you an idea to replace them with Polymorphism & Inheritance.

Asylum Australia Widget

Talk Face-To-Face within Gmail

Google has come out with yet another interesting feature for their IM. (gTalk)

Guess what? yes it is video chat!!!, now just speak face to face rather than typing the messages. :)

For more info on this and to get the new plugin check out Google blog

Flash Player Archives for testing

Many Flash whizz's ask me about different versions of Flash player for testing.

For all you guys who wants to test your flash content across various versions of player go to this link and try out.

This page has players from v2 to the latest!

Happy Testing! Happy debugging!!

The New AOL.com

Check out the new cool features in the new AOL.com page..isn't it simple n neat? All my social networks, favorite website links at one place..wow makes my work easy.

few insights on this page @ TechCrunch

Sumo Paint

Sumo Paint is a browser based image editing/creating tool.

The best thing about this tool is, it is created using ADOBE FLEX. Really awesome app!! Kudos guys!

User can edit/create images and upload it to Sumo account which is showcased in the Sumo gallery.

I just tried it and its pretty straight forward, there is no complications its easy to use. The layout is almost like all the other existing editing s/w's. So you need not search for any option its all there where it should be ;)

Found one drawback in it, '.jpg' is the only output format. Hope they will rope in other formats too in future.

Wanna check this app? check out here

Away 3d

Away3D is a real time 3D engine for Flash. Its written in AS3.

So why waiting? thrs another 3d engine up there...go get it..am gonna start now. ( i know am bit late)

for API docs check here API

Check out these sample done in Away3d

1) TiltViewer

2) Nike

AOL Living - Horoscope Widget

Horoscope Widget

This is another widget done by me for AOL Living channel.

User Case:

1. nav between, and read, three horoscopes (one for yesterday, today and tomorrow), updated daily.
2. personalize the widget with user's sign / birthday.
3. visit either the weekday or weekend destination (via large call to action on bottom)
4. sponsorship via loaded SWF in top right
5. syndication via Goowy platform (lower right)
6. other branding (horoscope author, feed provider)

Customization :

The user picks his/her astrological sign from the menu. Once chosen, the data is written to Shared Object so persistent (on that computer).

Also written and read via Goowy's get + setSettings (so it is persistent and visible to third parties on FB).

Before the sign is ever chosen:
"Change sign" button reads "Choose sign"
"Choose sign" button has a white pulse animation, prompting the user to pick their sign.
The horoscope is set to the generic "Daily"

Goowy :

This widget will use the Goowy Platform. When the user clicks the “snag” button in the bottom right of the widget, the Goowy API runs a canned flip animation and shows their syndication panel. Each icon in this panel starts a unique process to embed the TT5 widget in the desired destination (Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, etc). We are using their tool to build a Facebook App for this widget.

We connect to their API inside the Flash and then publish the widget on their servers via the "dashboard" on their site. We then take their embed code for the widget on their site, adapt it to fit our standards and insert the code pointing to their server) into our SWF publisher.

Tracking :

This widget will use both:
Goowy’s full tracking suite (via a Living sub-account on their site)
Omniture (via eVar16 and a client-cap for this widget).

Adobe CS4 launch broadcast

Google Chrome

A beta version for Microsoft Windows was released on 2 September 2008 in 43 languages. Mac OS X and Linux versions are under development and are scheduled to be released sometime in the future.



Security

Chrome periodically downloads updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware) and warns users when they attempt to visit a harmful site. This service is also made available for use by others via a free public API called "Google Safe Browsing API". In the process of maintaining these blacklists, Google also notifies the owners of listed sites who may not be aware of the presence of the harmful software.


Speed

The Javascript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (like Adobe/Mozilla's Tamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark. Existing implementations were designed "for small programs, where the performance and interactivity of the system weren't that important" but web applications like Gmail "are using the web browser to the fullest when it comes to DOM manipulations and Javascript". The resulting V8 JavaScript engine has features such as hidden class transitions, dynamic code generation, and precise garbage collection. Tests by Google show that V8 is about twice as fast as Firefox 3 and the Safari 4 beta.

Stability
The Gears team were considering a multithreaded browser (noting that a problem with existing web browser implementations was that they are inherently single-threaded) and Chrome implemented this concept with a multiprocessing architecture similar to the one developed by Opera in 1994 or that was recently implemented by Internet Explorer 8

Chrome features a process management utility called the Task Manager which allows the user to "see what sites are using the most memory, downloading the most bytes and abusing CPU" (as well as the plugins which run in separate processes) and terminate them

Standards

The first release of Google Chrome does not pass the Acid3 test; however, it scores 78/100, which is higher than both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox

APE

Wondering why am I writing on nonhuman primates? Na...its not about that now.. :)

APE - ActionScript Physics Engine

is a free AS3 open source 2D physics engine, released under the MIT License. APE is written and maintained by Alec Cove.

features

CircleParticles
-fixed or non-fixed
-variable mass, elasticity, and surface friction

RectangleParticles
-rotatable
-fixed or non-fixed
-variable mass, elasticity, and surface friction

WheelParticles
-traction and angular velocity
-fixed or non-fixed
-variable mass, elasticity, and surface friction

SpringConstraints
-stiffness
-collidable or non-collidible
-collidable constraints have variable width and scale

Grouping
-Composite class may contain Particles, and Constraints
-Group class may contain Particles, Constraints, and Composites

Collision
-multisampling
-static collision tests

Licensing
-non restrictive MIT License

AOL Movie Planner

Features :

nav between the Featured Movie, Top Movies, Box Office collection info of movies that are updated weekly.
search for a movie (via large call to action on bottom)
sponsorship via loaded SWF in top right
syndication via Goowy platform (lower right)
other branding (Moviefone the feed provider)

Goowy :

This widget will use the Goowy Platform. When the user clicks the “snag” button in the bottom right of the widget, the Goowy API runs a canned flip animation and shows their syndication panel. Each icon in this panel starts a unique process to embed the TT5 widget in the desired destination (Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, etc). We are using their tool to build a Facebook App for this widget.

We connect to their API inside the Flash and then publish the widget on their servers via the "dashboard" on their site. We then take their embed code for the widget on their site, adapt it to fit our standards and insert the code pointing to their server) into our SWF publisher.

Tracking :

This widget will use :
Goowy’s full tracking suite (via a Living sub-account on their site)
Omniture (via eVar16 and a client-cap for this widget).
PMMS Video Tracking, to track the playback of the videos.

Various sponsorship & promotion deals :

Top 10 Best Airports

Its been a long time since I blogged, no excuses...its just that I didn't get much time :(

Ok here we go...this one is for travelers...

Here is the list of worlds top 10 best airports

10. Cape Town, South Africa
9. Helsinki, Finland
8. Zürich, Switzerland
7. Copenhagen, Denmark
6. Kansai, Japan
5. Munich, Germany
4. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
3. Seoul Incheon, South Korea
2. Singapore Changi, Singapore
1. Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong

hey, have you been to all these airports? no! come on lets plan a trip
"Around the world in 80 days" :)

Improved Flash Indexing

This is inline with my earlier post SWF n SEO

Read this interesting Q&A to get more info..

SWF n SEO

Today Adobe announced the SEO friendly SWF :)

SWF can be searched just like other content!?

Note from Adobe site:-

Adobe is providing optimized Adobe® Flash® Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.

This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich Web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable — they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe. More Info

Wasn't that a good news for devs like us? ofcourse!!

5 minutes! Listen to this..Think...Act

Its pretty late to think, but as thy say 'BETTER LATE THAN NEVER'!!

Its serious and its an undone duty from each one of us!! Think n React!!!

Windows 7 Features Revealed

I need not say anything on this...the video speaks volume about it.

Let us see how they are packaging this product and how much it'll be costing in the market.

What about Steve Jobs, what is he gonna come up with to beat this out?
You guys rivalry always brings product to customer delight. :)

Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo

Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. Using still photos culled from the Web, Photosynth builds breathtaking dreamscapes and lets us navigate them.

Enjoy the demo!!! mindblowing stuff.

Adobe Presenter

Adobe Presenter 7 ! Now Available !

If you are a corporate training professional wanting to have engaging flash trainings created quickly, educationist wanting to provide on demand courseware for students, marketing professional trying to create high impact multimedia pitch for your offerings or a subject matter expert trying to create rapid trainings, the new Adobe Presenter would make life a lot easier for you.

Adobe Presenter 7 is a very significant new release having many breakthrough new features and is available from today. You would now be able to create a lot more engaging and impactful flash based multimedia trainings very easily and quickly from within Powerpoint. These features have been packed with careful attention to ensure that we do not compromise on the ease of use that you have come to expect out of Adobe Presenter.

Some of the key highlights of the new version are

More Engaging and Higher Impact Training Creation

Presenter 7 has smart multimedia capabilities like incorporating existing video in almost any format to your trainings as flash video and embedding video’s by capturing them directly out of your webcam.You can also create high quality content with Presenter 7 now supporting CD quality stereo audio and H.264video.

Quizzing has been enhanced significantly and quiz creation is now a lot easier, faster and powerful. You can now have questions pooled together in groups and have a fixed number of questions selected randomly selected for each learner. The order of questions as well as answer options can be shuffled. You would also be able to import Quiz questions directly and easily from your existing content.


Wider Content Distribution

Creating engaging content for delivery to distributed audience is a key challenge that we have continued to address with Presenter 7. You would now be able to have trainings taken on mobile devices. You would also be able to package the training as a pdf documents with all the animations intact for easier distribution.


Increased Usability and Configurability

Presenter 7 is a lot more usable with features to make your trainings powerful yet easier to create.

* Ability to restrict navigation for learners which is useful for compliance trainings.
* Easier incorporation of Captivate created swf’s with automatic updation of slide timings
* New format for storing audio (Y es, we have done away with PPC format)
* Bulk formatting of quiz questions for faster authoring
* Separate Quiz pane for easier navigation for the learners
* Fewer clicks for common tasks like slide management
* And a lot more …..

for more info on this check Adobe Presenter, Blog

A day with Colin Mook!

Flash extrordinaire, ActionScript expert Colin Mook was here in Blore on 29th for an intensive full day of free ActionScript 3.0 training.

This one-day event covers the fundamental skills for AS3. Topics covered include object-oriented programming, classes, objects, event handling, etc.,

He also gave a quick sneek peek on AS 4.0.

Though the topics looks preliminary, it gave a nice insight on coding practices, style and MVC model.

Personally i felt the training like I am goin thru his book. :)
I wish he could come again for similar full fledged training on advanced concepts in AS 3.0 and if possible on new features in AS4.0 :)





Thats me n ma friends with Collin to get his autograph :)

Alternativa 3D

Here is another 3d engine for AS, just had a quick glance on this and it seems to be a real 3d world out there. Lots of 3d s/w options right here inside this engine.
materials, lights, cameras etc.,

The demos out there on Alternativa 3D is simply awesome...the frame rate in which the scenes are getting rendered..OMG! the dev's out there have done a great job indeed! Kudos to you guys!

In this week itself I've read 3-4 articles about various 3d engines available in action script..where is this Action Script going? Its been a huge make over happening in this scripting world.

ok you just check out this engine right here

TweenMax

Here is the new set of Tween classes for Action Script 2 & 3, called TweenMax.

TweenMax builds on top of the TweenLite core class and its big brother, TweenFilterLite, to round out the tweening family with popular (though not essential) features like bezier tweening, pause/resume capabilities, easier sequencing, hex color tweening, and more. TweenMax uses the same easy-to-learn syntax as its siblings. In fact, since it extends them, TweenMax can do anything TweenLite and/or TweenFilterLite can do, plus more. So why build 3 classes instead of one? Good question. The goal was to maximize efficiency and minimize file size. Frankly, TweenLite is probably all most developers will need for 90% of their projects, and it only takes up 3k. It's extremely efficient and compact considering its features. But if you need to tween filters or rich imaging effects like saturation, contrast, hue, colorization, etc., step up to TweenFilterLite at 6k (total). Still need more? No problem - snag TweenMax to add extra features jam-packed into 8k (total). See below for a chart describing the differences between the classes. TweenMax introduces an innovative feature called "bezierThrough" that allows you to define points through which you want the bezier curve to travel (instead of normal control points that simply attract the curve). Or use regular bezier curves - whichever you prefer.

To know more on this, reg. the performance, feature comparison and usage check here

CAPTCHA now gotcha!

CAPTCHA! wondering wats this is?

The abbreviation is for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
now u got that? nope!? ok let me put this way..

These are the texts (distorted texts like symbols n mixed cases) which needs to be typed in when a user wants to sign in to an account, idea is to ensure that the datas are coming in from a human and not from a malicious bot.

Now a security firm is reporting that the CAPTCHA used for Windows Live Mail, Gmail can be cracked in as little as 60 seconds. OMG! gone in 60 seconds thats so fast n furious!!

wanna know more on this? check this article

FFilmation

Following my Particle systems note i am glad to write about another amazing open source in AS3 (Action Script 3) to create a 3d world.



FFilmation Engine is an AS3 isometric programing engine, focused mainly on game development.

Here’s a list of highlited features mentioned in the FFilmation site:

1. One engine capable of handling several isometric scenes of different complexities.
2. Create scenes from human-readable XML definitions, allowing easy edition of the scene’s topology and contents
3. Graphic media can be split into several external resources and loaded when an scene needs them
4. Flat textures. Paint your grahics directly into flash. Walls, floors and celings are edited as 2D graphics and projected by the engine. Elements and animated characters can be animated via flash timeline, no need for complex programming.
5. Dynamic lighting, global lighting, real-time shadow projection. Multiple lights from multiple sources affecting the same objects.
6. Bump-mapped surfaces. Still somehow buggy and a serious performance killer, but already there.
7. An extendable material interface. MovieClip materials, autotiled materials, procedural materials.
8. Automatic zSorting of all surfaces and objects
9. Built-in collision detection. No need to program complex coordinate comparisions, simple listen to COLLISION events generated by the engine.
10. Basic AI API helpers such as “is character A visible from character B’s position ?”

So we've a 3d World filled with particle systems, wow! what a color full scene?
I cant stop creating a world for me with these...

Flint Particle Systems

Earlier days when I was learning 3ds Max, my favorite sfx creation was with Particle Systems. Later on I moved on to Flash development and did went back to 3ds Max.

But now I've a good news that I can create a similar particle sfx with Action Script! wow :) It all can be done by a open source called "Flint".

Flint is an open-source project to create a versatile particle system in Actionscript 3. The aim is to create a system that handles the common functionality for all particle systems, has methods for common particle behaviour, and lets developers extend it easily with their own custom behaviours without needing to touch the core code.

Flint is developed by Big Room ventures Ltd. and is released under the MIT open source licence.


isnt it sounds cool, wanna try your hand? go ahead!! "Spray" ur swf :)

Google Analytics + Flash

I found an interesting article in one of the blogs and thought of sharing it in my circle of life....especially the Flash coders.

Its all about how to use Google Analytics to track your button clicks and report to you what buttons users clicked on your swf content to get to what sections of the file.

Sounds interesting and useful? then chk the article here.

Adobe RIA Summit 2008

Yesterday from 9 A.M - 6 P.M I had a real good (technical) time listening to speakers on RIA | AIR | Flex.

It was very informative sessions.

Here is an outline on what happened in the summit...
* RIA - Past, Present and Future
* RIA Platform Roadmap
* Architecting Flex applications
* Wiring it all up - How to connect your flex application to backends
* "Hall of Fame" - Customer Success Stories, Products and Solution demos, Meet the Flex team
* RIA Best Practices
* "Getting the ACT together" - The role of Academia, Community & Training in the Flex ecosystem
* AIRkitectur - A technical session on Adobe Integrated Runtime

Speakers:
* Dr. Naresh Gupta, M.D. Adobe Systems India * David Wadhwani, VP, Platform BU, Adobe Systems Inc.
* Ben Forta, Director - Evangelism, Adobe Systems Inc.
* James Ward, Platform Evangelist, Adobe Systems Inc.
* Sunil Bannur, Flex Architect, Adobe Systems Inc.
* Raghunath Rao, Technical Evangelist, Adobe Systems Inc

Thanks to Mrinal to get the videos of the summit. Check the videos here

Ben Forta and James Ward's session was simply awesome!!!

Design Coding

The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) is back with another marketing rap.

This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site.

Lyrics

Your site design is the first thing people seeit should be reflective of you and the industryeasy to look at with a nice navigationwhen you can't find what you want it causes
frustrationa clear Call to action to increase the temptationuse appealing graphics they create motivationif you have animationuse with moderationcause search engines can't index
the informationdisplay the logos of all your associationshighlight your contact info that's an obligationcreate a clean design you can use some decorationbut to try to prevent any client
hesitationevery page that they click should provide and explanationshould be easy to understand like having a conversationwhen you design the style go ahead and use your imagination but make sure you use correct color combinationsdo some investigation, look at other organizationsbut don't duplicate or you might face a litigationdesign done, congratulations but it's time to start constructionfollow these instructions when you move into productionyour photoshop functions then slice that designdo your layout with divs make sure that it's alignedplease don't use tables even though they work finewhen it come to indexing they give searches a hard timemake it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provideremove font type, font color and font sizeno background colors, keep your coding real neat, tag your look and feel on a separate style sheetbetter results with xml and cssnow you making progress, a lil closer to successdescribe your doctype so the browser can relatemake sure you do it great or it won't validatecheck in all browsers, I do it directlygotta make sure that it renders correctlysome use IE, some others use Flocksome use AOL, I use Firefoxtitle everything including links and imagesdon't use italics, use emphasisdon't use bold, please use strongif you use bold that's old and wrongwhen you use CSS, you page will load quickerclient satisfied like they eating on a snickerthey stuck on your page like you made it with a stickerand then they convert now that's the real kickermake you a lil richer, your site a lil slickerdesign and code right man I hope you get the picturewhat I'm telling you is true man it should be a scriptureif it's built right you'll be the pick of the littereveryone will want to follow you like twittercompetition will get bitter and you'll shine like glitterif you trying to grow your company will get biggerdesign and code right man can you get with it...

The Best Laptops Under $1000

The Best Laptops Under $1000
These budget laptops--from the big-brands you know--will let you get the job done, without breaking the bank.

1. Designer Looks: HP Pavilion dv2660se



The $900 HP Pavilion dv2660se offers strictly middling performance, but its exceptional battery life and a great design make it our winning laptop under $1000. The notebook's WorldBench 6 score of 67 is significantly lower than the high-eighties marks of some portables with the latest mobile chips, but it's not bad for a budget machine. Though the 14.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel screen could be a tad brighter, it's easy enough to read. Nice extras include a bundled copy of Microsoft Works 8.5, and the ability to play a CD or DVD without first launching Windows. The dv2660se also has upgrade potential thanks to a side connection (one that all Pavilion laptops have) for HP's xb3000 Notebook Expansion Base.

Full Review and Specs | Manufacturer's Page
Photograph: Robert Cardin
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2. Got Game: Acer Aspire 5920-6954



Except for business applications, which it lacks, the $999, 7.2-pound Aspire 5920-6954 has just about everything that price-conscious home-office buyers could ask for. It includes a 250GB hard drive and both an HDMI port and an HD DVD reader. It also has a subwoofer for better-than-average sound and a handy volume wheel. The terrific keyboard boasts loads of useful shortcut buttons, including one to play music or movies without first launching Windows. This is also the only sub-$1000 laptop here with a dedicated graphics chip: an nVidia GeForce 8600M GS with 256MB of memory. The Aspire posted a solid WorldBench 6 score of 70 (the second best in this group), and its battery life was average at 3.8 hours.

Full Review and Specs | Check Prices
Photograph: Robert Cardin
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3. Built to Order: Dell Inspiron 1525



Like the excellent HP Pavilion dv2600se, this $999, 15.4-inch Dell has lots of entertainment features: an instant-on button, a Webcam, and even dual headphone jacks. The 1525's Media­Direct button also lets you view your calendar, contacts, and PowerPoint presentations--without booting into Windows. Our test model paired 2GB of memory and a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU to produce a WorldBench 6 score of 78; that's 17 percent faster than the average score of 65 posted by the five models in this slide show. With the battery upgraded from the standard four-cell to a six-cell ($15 extra), our unit lasted just over 4 hours on a charge. Though you get only basic integrated graphics, the Inspiron 1525 does include an HDMI connection for HDTVs. And an important difference between this and most other inexpensive laptops: You can customize it down to the smallest detail--even the lid color--before finally clicking the 'Buy Now' button.

Full Review and Specs | Manufacturer's Page
Photograph: Robert Cardin
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4. Lightweight Contender: Fujitsu LifeBook S7211



This svelte $899 Windows Vista Business laptop has only two significant drawbacks: so-so speed, and an inability to burn DVDs. The S7211 notched a WorldBench 6 score of 56, putting it 14 percent behind the average of 65 earned by the five sub-$1000 laptops we tested. Aside from a minor glare problem, the 14.1-inch, 1280-by-800-resolution screen is crisp and readable. We quickly acclimated to the petite keyboard, which features Fujitsu's dual-purpose Security Application Panel (numbered buttons for shortcut keys or a password). The S7211 weighs 5.2 pounds with a CD writer/DVD reader installed in its modular bay. Swap this optical drive out for a battery instead ($120 extra), and Fujitsu says you can get about 6.5 hours of operation. Our review unit lasted an average 3.8 hours with a single battery.

Full Review and Specs | Manufacturer's Pricing
Photograph: Robert Cardin
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5. Sweet Sound: Toshiba Satellite Pro A210-EZ2201



The basic $699 Toshiba Satellite Pro A210-EZ2201 is the lowest-priced laptop of our sub-$1000 group, and it's also rather slow, with short battery life too. If pinching pennies is paramount, however, this 15.4-inch, Windows Vista Basic notebook can get mainstream work done without too much fuss. The only model here using an AMD processor, and only one of two to include just 1GB of RAM, the Satellite Pro A210-EZ2201 achieved a WorldBench 6 score of just 54. The sub-$1000 laptop average was 19 percent faster. Performance aside, this black-and-silver unit has some nice features for a $699 notebook, including a DVD writer, a FireWire port, and an ExpressCard/54 slot. It even has two surprises. One is an empty bay inside for adding a second hard drive. (A single 80GB hard drive comes standard.) The other is great sound--this plain little laptop belts out music like Ugly Betty channeling Celine Dion.

Full Review and Specs | Check Prices
Photograph: Robert Cardin

Thanks to my friend Praks for getting me this useful info. :)

AOL showcase widgets @ Adobe AIR launch, SF

yourminis

widgets for your blog, website, startpage, and desktop!

yourminis is a widget platform which simplifies the development, syndication, and measurement of widgets for content owners and 3rd party developers, offers a social library of widgets for end user discovery, and provides advertisers with a new way to engage the consumer with their brand and message.

This was launched by a startup called Goowy, which created a flash-based productivity suite (email, calendar, IM, etc.) last year.

yourminis also has a browser extension that makes it easier to add information to the site. Videos, photos and RSS feeds can added to a user’s YourMinis page by simply clicking on a button added to the browser. This is particularly useful for subscribing to RSS feeds - a module is automatically added to YourMinis based on the auto-discovered feed.

AOL acquired Goowy. Goowy offers widget-based ad solutions, as well as a platform called Yourminis.com, which is a widget creation platform for developers. AOL had previously used the small startup to provide widgets for MyAOL.

"We are excited about joining the AOL family. The platform and services we've built are an obvious fit with AOL's ad-supported web strategy, and we look forward to expanding our widget offerings across the AOL network," claims Goowy CEO Alex Bard.

yourminis has been selected by the editors of Webware, a CNET site, as a finalist in this year’s “Webware 100” Awards for "Browsing". The Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation. Finalists are selected by the editors of Webware, but the ultimate winners will be picked by the public. Winners will be announced on Monday, April 21, 2008.
for more info on this check here

PicLens

PicLens, a photo viewer tool creates a cool experience for viewing images on the web.

It instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen a 3D experience on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. The animation of the images looks so cool and smooth.

With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.




From Picasa to AOL Images, and even Facebook and Hi5, PicLens works with a growing number of our favorite websites.

Photo Sites: Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums, DeviantArt, Smugmug
Social Networking: Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster
Image Search: Google Images, AOL Images, Yahoo Images, Ask Images, Live Images

PicLens is free to download, free to use, and does not contain any adware or spyware whatsoever.

Sprout :: Online-WYSIWYG-editor-for-Flash

Sprout, is a browser-based editor for Flash with an interface just like Photoshop or Dreamweaver. It serves us to create, publish and track Flash widgets, websites and mashups. The application itself is entirely Flash/Flex-based.

Sprouts, can be for Promotional, Personal & Informational purposes.

Sprout has partnered with leading Web content services including ChipIn, Meebo, PollDaddy and Ribbit, as well as widget distribution services Clearspring, Gigya, and SpringWidgets.

NDTV Indian of the Year

NDTV presented awards to Indian heroes in a glittering function held at Taj Palace, New Delhi, on 17th Jan 2008. The award is meant for those who have shown promise and excellence in their respective fields. It is a way to honor them for the efforts they have put in for building the ‘Brand India’.

Here's a roundup of the winners in various categories. The top prize, the NDTV Indian of the Year award went to the Indian soldiers.

Winners of NDTV Indian of the Year Award

NDTV Leader of the Year: Dr Manmohan Singh

NDTV Entertainer of the Year: Rajnikanth

NDTV Sportsman of the Year: Vishwanathan Anand

NDTV Music Award: A R Rehman

NDTV Business Leader of the Year: Mukesh Ambani

NDTV The unsung hero, introduced for people “who should have made headlines but don’t”, the award went to ‘The Indian Soldier,’ representing the Army — the second largest standing army in the world with 3.3 lakh soldiers guarding Kashmir and Assam in extreme conditions. The award was accepted by Army chief General Deepak Kapoor.

NDTV Global Indian of the Year: R K Pachauri

Video Trace

VideoTrace: Rapid interactive scene modelling from video

Australian Centre for Visual Technologies, explains the VideoTrace technology as

VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model. Each of the sketching operations in VideoTrace provides an intuitive and powerful means of modelling shape from video, and executes quickly enough to be used interactively. Immediate feedback allows the user to model rapidly those parts of the scene which are of interest and to the level of detail required. The combination of automated and manual reconstruction allows VideoTrace to model parts of the scene not visible, and to succeed in cases where purely automated approaches would fail.



Isn't that interesting? wondering how simple the 3d modeling is gonna be in future.
For more info check VideoTrace

Apple-MacBook Air

Apple released their new ultrathin, ultraportable notebook at the 2008 MacWorld Keynote, which costs >= $1799.

Specs:

Display
13.3 in display

13.3-inch (diagonal) glossy widescreen TFT LED backlit display with support for millions of colors

Supported resolutions: 1280 by 800 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, 800 by 500, 720 by 480, and 640 by 480 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio

Size and weight

Height: 0.16-0.76 inch (0.4-1.94 cm)
Width: 12.8 inches (32.5 cm)
Depth: 8.94 inches (22.7 cm)
Weight: 3.0 pounds (1.36 kg)



Processor and memory

Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache running at full processor speed

* 800MHz frontside bus
* 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM onboard

Standard: 1.6 GHZ - Optional: 1.8 GHZ.

Storage

* 80GB 4200-rpm Parallel ATA hard disk drive2
* Optional 64GB solid-state drive2
* Optional external USB MacBook Air SuperDrive

Graphics and video support
Pure digital video output

DVI output using micro-DVI to DVI adapter (included)

VGA output using micro-DVI to VGA adapter (included)

Composite output using micro-DVI to video adapter (optional)

S-video output using micro-DVI to video adapter (optional)

Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory

Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors
iSight

Audio

* Analog audio output/headphone out (minijack)
* Built-in mono speaker
* Built-in omnidirectional microphone

Built-in iSight camera

Installed software

* Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (includes Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools)
* iLife ’08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand)

For more info Mac Air

Remember Shakti: Giriras Sudha

Mind blowing, Awesome music. Couldnt stop listening to it.

John McLaughlin - Guitar
Zakir Hussain - Tabla
V Selvaganesh - Percussion
U Shrinivas - Mandolin
Shankar Mahadevan - Vocal

Tata NANO

Tata has unveiled the Tata 1-Lakh Car and has named it the Tata Nano, the "People's Car".

Its making all the news across Globe truly its "Small in size but big in technology".



Specs.

* 624 cc engine
* 33 HP petrol engine
* Mileage of 20 kilometers per liter
* Passed full frontal crash test, the offset and side-crash test
* Bumper to bumper length 8% less than Maruti 800
* Legroom is expected to be 21 pc more than Maruti 800.
* The car meets the Bharat 3 (Euro 4) emission standards.
* The car that will come in two variants - AC & non-AC
* Will come a dealer price of Rs 1 lakh + VAT + transport charges.
* Commercial launch in mid 2008-09

Happy New Year 2008

I wish you Health...
So you may enjoy each day in comfort.

I wish you the Love of friends and family...
And Peace within your heart.

I wish you the Beauty of nature...
That you may enjoy the work of God.

I wish you Wisdom to choose priorities...
For those things that really matter in life.

I wish you Generousity so you may share...
All good things that come to you.

I wish you Happiness and Joy...
And Blessings for the New Year.

I wish you the best of everything...
That you so well deserve.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIEND!

~ Author Unknown to me ~